Long-awaited Main Street Revitalization Project slated for April start

Main Street Winooski corridor. Photo by Owen Carpenter-Zehe

Six years ago, Winooski residents approved a major project to upgrade the city’s Main Street. After a series of delays, including the Covid-19 pandemic, they may have forgotten, but construction is finally set to begin — in two months.

Multiple local businesses, nearby residents, Winooski Fire Department and all Winooski School District buildings that spill onto the stretch of roadway are bracing for major disruptions. As of this month, they still knew little about the specifics or how the city would manage the turmoil.

Kubricky-Jointa Lime LLC, the New York-based company that will oversee the Main Street Revitalization Project, just won the bid for the contract in December. Pre-construction public meetings are expected in March. The last public meeting took place in 2019, a year before construction was initially supposed to start.

Now slated to begin in April, the city project will rip up and reconfigure 4,000 feet, or about three-quarters of a mile, of Main Street from the New England Central Railroad bridge to the Colchester town line. It’ll take an estimated two and a half years. City officials have calculated 588 construction days, not including weather-related pauses.

As Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott bluntly said of the project, "There will be an impact."

Main Street Revitalization will begin as construction continues around Interstate 89 Exit 16, which channels Main Street traffic on and off the highway just across the Colchester line. Later this year, the next phase of the highway job will include “the bulk of the roadway work,” according to the Vermont Agency of Transportation, bumping up against the city’s project and adding to the upheaval. Construction for the planned replacement of the Burlington-Winooski Bridge, less than a mile from the Main Street corridor but on the opposite side of the downtown rotary, is not expected until 2027.

On the targeted stretch of Main Street, 15,000 drivers pass daily, according to the Vermont Agency of Transportation’s Annual Average Daily Traffic Report in 2022. Malletts Bay Avenue, the closest artery that would provide an alternate route in the same north-south direction, has maximum traffic of about 3,600 cars daily, the VTrans report shows.

The project will overhaul Main Street’s aging utility lines and water mains, some 140 years old. Design plans include new curbs, burial of overhead utility lines and "streetscape enhancements," including new lighting, landscaping, signs and pavement markings. Road expansion will allow for 12-foot sidewalks, parallel parking on one side of the street and a bike lane on the other.

Winooski school officials "have not initiated discussions with the city at this point,” said Miriam Greenfield, spokesperson for the school district. “However, we plan to collaborate and coordinate efforts to tackle challenges associated with infrastructure projects that could affect school operations."

A Main Street Revitalization Bond for the estimated $23 million project passed during a special election in May 2018. U.S. Department of Agriculture loans for rural development and other state and federal grants are covering part of the cost.

When the city awarded the contract late last year, the lowest bid came in closer to $28 million, 26 percent higher than the initial engineering estimates, according to the city’s November update on the project website. Lott said the city is still looking for additional funding options.

Construction was supposed to begin in 2019, but the project was postponed for multiple reasons up to the Covid shutdown in early 2020. "The pandemic really screeched things to a halt,” Lott said. Winooski "had to put a pause on significant expenses until 2021."

Then, the city had trouble securing necessary land easements from private property owners in order to start construction, said Jon Rauscher, Winooski’s public works director. Under form-based city development codes that Winooski adopted in 2016, newly constructed high-rise properties stand right at Main Street, leaving little room for utilities and maintenance work, which made the process of negotiating access and financial agreements more complicated, Rauscher said.

With the work now imminent, the city has heard some concerns from Main Street businesses about potential interference to customer access, Rauscher said. Traffic is likely to navigate around the construction and bypass those businesses, which the mayor described as "the sad reality" of a major road project.

Melissa Corbin, executive director of Downtown Winooski, a nonprofit supporting economic and community development in the city, said she is still gathering information about the construction. "I literally haven’t even seen the scope of the project or the phased schedule yet,” she said. “I need both of those to know what the potential impact to businesses will be.”

The city is working with Downtown Winooski on a marketing strategy to help mitigate any damage to businesses, Rauscher said. Other cities have used "We're Open During Construction" campaigns for similar projects. A business liaison will stay on site during construction to coordinate with local merchants in the development area, he said, and city departments are starting to talk about other ways to support the commercial corridor.

Raghu Acharya, who recently bought a Citgo gas station at 357 Main St. and owns a tax preparation office on the corridor, said he is more excited than concerned about the upcoming revitalization. "New housings are being built, new areas are being developed,” he said. “I think this will meet the needs of the people."

The gas station is getting upgrades, too, he added, “to match the new development that is coming."

For information on the Main Street Revitalization Project, visit www.winooskivt.gov/1593/Main-Street-Revitalization